


The Telling Touch

by mandykaysfic



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Alien Technology, F/M, M/M, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-16
Updated: 2014-02-16
Packaged: 2018-01-12 16:25:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1191900
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mandykaysfic/pseuds/mandykaysfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A young boy's heritage enables Sheppard to find out more about the people he comes in contact with than he wanted to know.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Telling Touch

Sheppard laughed at the punch line to Teyla's joke and then stood to bus his tray. “You coming, Rodney?”

“In a minute.” McKay waved a hand at the remainder of his lunch and continued tapping away at his computer. 

John lightly punched Ronon's arm as he passed, but the words he'd planned to say froze as a vision stole his view of the Mess Hall. It was Ronon, in his quarters in Atlantis. Ronon, splayed out naked on his bed. Ronon, with an equally naked Teyla poised over him. As John watched, she lowered herself onto Ronon and began to move her hips. John blinked and shook his head. Scientists and soldiers sat at the same tables as before. 

“Sheppard?” Ronon stared up at him.

“Er, yeah. The gym. In an hour, right?” To his relief, Ronon simply nodded and John let his feet take him to his office. To his even greater relief, sparring with Ronon for an hour produced lots of contact with no more visions.

 

The least a man could do was pick up her pen when Elizabeth dropped it. She bent down at the same time as John and their fingers touched as they scrabbled for it. He wasn't prepared for the picture of Elizabeth, a much younger Elizabeth, looking wide-eyed at the person kneeling between her legs. Suddenly, she screwed up her face and stuffed a fist into her mouth. John bumped his head on the edge of the desk as he sat up again. He drew back a little when she patted his hand as she apologized, but he saw nothing more than the rest of his team present at the briefing.

He felt better after nothing happened when he reflexively put a hand up to steady a young marine. The man practically fell out of one of the storage facilities onto him as he was passing by, thanks to a hearty shove by a comrade indulging in a little horseplay. Sheppard waved away their apologies and continued on his way with a lighter step. Coming in contact with Miko failed to produce any kind of vision either.

 

He must have zoned out a little when Zelenka reached back and grabbed his hand instead the screwdriver he held out, because suddenly he realized his name was being called repeatedly. The hair had been shorter, the glasses missing and the uniforms of both men military, but there had been no mistaking the young version of the scientist being bent over a desk. John was glad the visions weren't accompanied by sound. He faked a remembering a meeting with Lorne to account for his distraction and left Zelenka to continue working on the jumper alone, except he really didn't want to think about Lorne as he'd seen him last, in the back seat of a car with a pretty blonde in a prom dress.

When he saw Teyla, looking all of fifteen or sixteen, naked and lying back on a pile of furs, reaching for an equally naked youth, he pulled back from the Athosian greeting they ritually exchanged with a mumbled excuse and fled to his quarters. 

With one arm covering his eyes, Sheppard lay on his bed and worried over his newly acquired ability. It was more than a little disconcerting to be hit with _that_. A band of tension tightened around his head as he tried to sort things out. His door slid open without warning and McKay barreled in before he'd reached any sort of conclusion.

“Hey, are you all right?” Rodney stopped explaining something of importance and hurried over to lay a hand on John's head.

“Don't -,” but he was too late. “- touch me. S'okay. Just a bad headache,” John hastened to reassure Rodney, who'd drawn back in confusion. 

“Do you need anything?”

“No. It'll go away soon enough.”

“I'll be going then. I just wanted to find out whether you still had the box. Corrigan unearthed some information about it. It seems that child is destined to select the next generation of temple keepers or something, except there isn't much of a next generation to choose from.” Rodney's mouth closed briefly and his lips thinned before he continued. “Maybe he can be taught something more useful, because you know, temple keepers....” The accompanying hand gesture was derogatory. “Anyway, we didn't get a chance to examine it and we should while we have the chance. Not that I expect it to yield anything useful to us, but Ancient technology -.”

“Temple keepers?” interrupted Sheppard.

“Yes. It's possible the kid has the ATA gene. Carson was going to run some more tests, but we could just give him something to hold.”

“Temple keepers,” repeated John urgently. He had a bad feeling.

“Didn't I explain that? He uses whatever is in that box to help him decide who gets to serve their gods. Maybe they don't get enough people who wanted to give their life up to religion, so he gets to be like Big Brother and decide who does what with their lives.”

“Yes, but what kind of people are usually found working in temples? Especially if they've been chosen at a young age?”

Rodney snapped his fingers. “Virgins! You think this helps him detect virgins?” 

John knew the minute Rodney's gaze lit upon the box on his shelf and he cursed himself for not putting it out of sight.

_“Keep it safe for him. For four-and-twenty full turns. It's his heritage,” the old woman had begged as she pushed the box into Sheppard's hands. The wood was dark and highly polished, its surface smooth except for two small symbols carved on either side of the catch. When he agreed, she closed her eyes and breathed no more. The infant Teyla held opened his mouth to cry but she hushed him and urged their return to Atlantis. Three small girls, none older than five, and the boy were all that remained of the inhabitants after the raiders had passed through the village. For whatever reason they had been less than thorough and there was every indication they would return to complete their job. They'd returned to Atlantis with the children and Elizabeth had sent another team back to gather anything they could._

He cursed himself again for not connecting the fact he'd opened the box and examined the contents shortly before he'd begun having visions. Now he needed to get the box back from Rodney and turn things off. “Here,” he ordered and held out his hand, but Rodney already had the box open and the pair of silver balls in one hand. 

There hadn't been any bells or whistles, no flashes of light, or tingling fingers when he'd handled them the first time so he wasn't surprised when they didn't produce a visible reaction to Rodney. A part of him even hoped that Rodney's artificial gene wouldn't be enough to be strong enough to activate them. It was a forlorn hope as Rodney stilled the instant their fingers touched. John closed his eyes and remembered. He felt his ears heat when he opened his eyes again and took in Rodney's expression.

“You....” Rodney clamped his lips shut.

“Yeah. I don't think anyone else needs to examine this just now.” John really didn't need anyone else seeing him in the locker room after that one particular football training session.

“No. No, they don't. Atlantis has no use for this kind of thing. We're not in the business of offering up v-virgin sacrifices. You should make sure this is put somewhere safe. In fact, why don't I do that?”

“I'll just keep it here. It'll be safe enough. Nobody need know. I promise, nobody need know _anything_.”

Rodney nodded once and then turned and hurried from John's quarters. John placed the balls in the box and made some space for it on the highest shelf in his closet and positively did not contemplate the virginal status of his friend.

END


End file.
